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MEMBER DIARY

In The Fight For Life: 3801 Lancaster

3801 Lancaster is the former street address for Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s personal “house of horrors”, officially known as the Philadelphia Women’s Medical Society. Dr. Gosnell is currently being held, pending trial, which is set to begin on Monday, Mar.18, 2013. For those who aren’t familiar with the story of Dr. Gosnell, the following provides a brief overview of the case:

Gosnell, whose squalid “house of horrors” abortion clinic and callous, has had almost flippant attitude toward his macabre abortion practices shocked the nation.

“The Gosnell case is a watershed moment for the issue of abortion,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation. “The discovery of his horrific practices helped shed light on an abortion industry that has run amok without oversight or accountability for decades, and has prompted significant changes in abortion laws and attitudes toward enforcement in several states.”

In all, Gosnell faces 43 criminal counts, including eight counts of murder in the death of one patient, Karnamaya Monger, and seven newborn infants. Additional charges include conspiracy, drug delivery resulting in death, infanticide, corruption of minors, evidence tampering, theft by deception, abuse of corpse, and corruption.

Gosnell could face the death penalty if convicted and he faces a mandatory minimum 20 years. A pool of 125 was narrowed down to 43 potential jurors this afternoon and the death penalty played a role.

The grand jury report describes how state regulators failed to inspect Gosnell’s abortion facility for years at a time. In fact, the inspection that uncovered the evidence in Gosnell’s murder trial was not a state inspection, but a federal one; the FBI raided the clinic because Gosnell was allegedly running an illegal pill mill on the side. Had Gosnell stayed out of the drug trade, his horrific abortion and infanticide practice might have gone on unabated for many more years.

“3801 Lancaster” is also the title of a video that describes the actions of Dr. Gosnell along with the gross lack of due diligence on the part of the Pennsylvania Health Department. The video is roughly twenty minutes long, but it is well worth the investment of time to watch it. The video includes testimonials from two of Dr. Gosnell’s former patients. Each has a heart-wrenching tale to tell the public.

This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable, babies in the third trimester of pregnancy – and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors. The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels – and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths.

(snip)

Gosnell seemed impressive as well. A child of the neighborhood, Gosnell spent almost four decades running this clinic, giving back – so it appeared – to the community in which he continued to live and work.

But the truth was something very different, and evident to anyone who stepped inside. The clinic reeked of animal urine, courtesy of the cats that were allowed to roam (and defecate) freely. Furniture and blankets were stained with blood. Instruments were not properly sterilized. Disposable medical supplies were not disposed of; they were reused, over and over again. Medical equipment – such as the defibrillator, the EKG, the pulse oximeter, the blood pressure cuff – was generally broken; even when it worked, it wasn’t used. The emergency exit was padlocked shut. And scattered throughout, in cabinets, in the basement, in a freezer, in jars and bags and plastic jugs, were fetal remains. It was a baby charnel house.

The people who ran this sham medical practice included no doctors other than Gosnell himself, and not even a single nurse. Two of his employees had been to medical school, but neither of them were licensed physicians. They just pretended to be. Everyone called them “Doctor,” even though they, and Gosnell, knew they weren’t. Among the rest of the staff, there was no one with any medical licensing or relevant certification at all. But that didn’t stop them from making diagnoses, performing procedures, administering drugs.

The report itself is 280 pages long. The information provided above is simply an example of what is displayed on pages 1 and 2 of the report. Perhaps this might give an idea of the severity of conditions and gross negligence that was taking place in Dr. Gosnell’s business that supposedly supported “Women’s Health”.

Pro-life organization Life News will be following the Gosnell case as it unfolds. The decision in the case will determine how far our nation has come in acceptance of abortion as a way of life in America…even when it means the death of the mother along with the child.

After the facts of the conditions in Gosnell’s business began to be revealed, it opened the door for a new approach in addressing abortion services. Americans United for Life has become one of the primary leaders on the legal front of this battle.

I’ll be presenting a diary providing information that describes the activities of Americans United for Life on Mar. 16, 2013. Stay tuned for more!